“There were a round dozen of us, some younger and some older, but none beyond ten, for at ten years of age they were put out as apprentices. As I told you before, my lad, I never heard who my parents were, and, be my conscience! I don’t think any one of my comrades were a bit wiser. The treatment we got was none of the best, nor the food neither. When about nine years old, I was told I was to be bound in another year to a shoemaker, as it was very likely my father before me had been one. Why the devil they should think that puzzled me then, uncommonly; for, at that time, I had scarcely worn a shoe to my foot; but I knew I was firmly resolved never to be a shoemaker, or even a cobbler, who is a shade higher in rank in my opinion, as they are, like the king, exempt from taxation. I was a stout, active boy, and could write and read well, and was fond of getting hold of a book of any kind. I made up my mind to relieve the establishment of my presence, and one fine evening, just as it grew dark, I managed to hide myself, got out unobserved, and took to my heels, with a remarkably ragged coat, light airy trousers, seeing that they were full of holes, and as poor a pair of shoes to my feet as ever the son of a shoemaker possessed—and they do say they generally have the worst of those articles of any children. “You may say with truth that I began the world very humbly, and with remarkably small amount of capital—having just one halfpenny, and that a bad one, in my pocket; but ‘a light heart and a thin pair of inexpressibles’—and mine were thin, God knows—is an old saying; so away I went, light every way, for I had had no supper. “I got out of the town somehow, for I had never been out of it before, greatly tempted to stop and look at the fine shops, all lighting up so gaily, but I was resolved to get into the country. I knew nothing of the locality, had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do; the only thing that occupied my mind was, that a shoemaker I would not be. My first night was passed under a hedge; luckily it was in the summer months—August, I think—so I was not much worse lodged than usual. “As soon as I awoke I made a start of it, walked a mile or two along the bye-paths, till I came to a small cabin—a labourer’s cabin. The father, mother, and seven children were eating their breakfast—that is, the table was covered with a lot of smoking hot potatoes, and a pile of salt in the middle. The sight made me hungry, so I asked them to let me join them, as I had had neither supper nor breakfast. “‘Bedad, help yourself and welcome,’ said the man, and I did.